Uri Orlev

Hillel Halkin

Based on a true story, Srulik, an eight-year-old boy, escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside.

A Novel

Run, Boy, Run

Meir Shalev

The Blue Mountain is the first novel by one of Israel's most important and acclaimed contemporary writers and as with all his writing is a virtuoso example of Shalev's skill as a storyteller. Published to outstanding reviews all over the world, its publication in Britain re-affirms his reputation as a major international writer.Set in a small rural village prior to the creation of the State of Israel, this funny and hugely imaginative book paints an extraordinary picture of a small community of Ukrainian immigrants as they succeed in pioneering a new life in a new land over three generations. The Blue Mountain transcends its time and place by touching on issues of universal relevance whilst never failing to entertain and engage the reader. As with Four Meals, the writing is lyrical and of exceptional quality and illustrates why Shalev has been steadily winning over an ever-increasing number of fans worldwide.

The Blue Mountain

Moshe Kulbak

"Describes the travails of a Jewish family living in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality"--P. [4] of cover.

A Family Saga

The Zelmenyaners

A. B. Yehoshua

Mr. Mani

Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940) was a man of huge paradoxes and contradictions and has been the most misunderstood of all Zionist politicians--a first-rate novelist, a celebrated Russian journalist, and the founder of the branch of Zionism now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. This biography, the first in English in nearly two decades, undertakes to answer central questions about Jabotinsky as a writer, a political thinker, and a leader. Hillel Halkin sets aside the stereotypes to which Jabotinsky has been reduced by his would-be followers and detractors alike. Halkin explains the importance of Odessa, Jabotinsky’s native city, in molding his character and outlook; discusses his novels and short stories, showing the sometimes hidden connections between them and Jabotinsky’s political thought, and studies a political career that ended in tragic failure. Halkin also addresses Jabotinsky’s position, unique among the great figures of Zionist history, as both a territorial maximalist and a principled believer in democracy. The author inquires why Jabotinsky was often accused of fascist tendencies though he abhorred authoritarian and totalitarian politics, and investigates the many opposed aspects of his personality and conduct while asking whether or not they had an ultimate coherence. Few figures in twentieth-century Jewish life were quite so admired and loathed, and Halkin’s splendid, subtle book explores him with empathy and lucidity.

A Life

Jabotinsky

Haim Sabato

When war breaks out in 1973, childhood friends Haim and Dov are called up together to serve in their tank battalion, but in the chaos of battle the friends are separated. A month later, Haim returns alone, on his first leave home. Struggling to come to terms with his experiences he wonders what happened to Dov during those fateful days.

Adjusting Sights

The Hans Christian Andersen-winning author of The Island on Bird Street finds Michael leaving behind a lonely existence for a new start in Israel, where he receives his grandfather's gift--the magical power to step into dreams.

The Song of the Whales

This passionate polemic addresses itself to the ultimate questions of Jewish destiny and proclaims the primacy of Israel as the locus of the Jewish future. Hillel Halkin is an American-born Jew who has cast his personal and historical lot with Israel. Corresponding with an imaginary “American Jewish friend” who upholds the possibility of a viable Jewish life outside Israel, Halkin forcefully argues his case: Jewish history and Israeli history are two lines in the process of converging; and any Jew who chooses, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, not to live in Israel is removing himself to the peripheries of the struggle for Jewish survival and away from the center of Jewish destiny.

A Zionist's Polemic

Letters to an American Jewish Friend

An older man is writing to and about his wife, who has left him... in this the debut novel by the illustrious translator and political commentator, who is a sixtysomething debutant.

What are Dreams?

Melisande!

Abraham B. Yehoshua

A profound and passionate epic chronicling six generations in the mani family, from the mid nineteenth century to the mid 1980's.

A deeply personal look at death, mourning, and the afterlife in Jewish tradition After One-Hundred-and-Twenty provides a richly nuanced and deeply personal look at Jewish attitudes and practices regarding death, mourning, and the afterlife as they have existed and evolved from biblical times to today. Taking its title from the Hebrew and Yiddish blessing to live to a ripe old age—Moses is said to have been 120 years old when he died—the book explores how the Bible's original reticence about an afterlife gave way to views about personal judgment and reward after death, the resurrection of the body, and even reincarnation. It examines Talmudic perspectives on grief, burial, and the afterlife, shows how Jewish approaches to death changed in the Middle Ages with thinkers like Maimonides and in the mystical writings of the Zohar, and delves into such things as the origins of the custom of reciting Kaddish for the deceased and beliefs about encountering the dead in visions and dreams. After One-Hundred-and-Twenty is also Hillel Halkin's eloquent and disarmingly candid reflection on his own mortality, the deaths of those he has known and loved, and the comfort he has and has not derived from Jewish tradition.

Reflecting on Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in the Jewish Tradition

After One-Hundred-and-Twenty

During World War I, the head of a British spy ring in a Jewish colony in Ottoman-ruled Palestine, the beautiful Sarah Aaronsohn, killed herself. When the ring was broken by the Turks, leaving behind a letter in which she asked to be avenged. Was she? And what did this have to do with the spectacle of four women who ran through the town, jeering and cursing the arrested spies as though let loose from "an infernal world of Gorgons and Furies?" A Strange Death is the answer to this. But it is many other things, too. A tantalizing murder mystery. A lyrical evocation of an Israeli town in the 1970s and of its old farming population, the descendants of the colonists who founded it in 1882. The story of an American couple that romantically settled there and of what they found. And last but not least the question: Was there a path not taken from those days to ours that might have made all the difference?

A Strange Death

Part of the Jewish Encounter series A masterly biography of Yehuda Halevi, one of the greatest of Hebrew poets and a shining example of the synthesis of religion and culture that defined the golden age of medieval Spanish Jewry. Like Maimonides, with whom he contrasts sharply, Yehuda Halevi spanned multiple worlds. Poet, philosopher, and physician, he is known today for both his religious and secular verse, including his famed “songs of Zion,” and for The Kuzari, an elucidation of Judaism in dialogue form. Hillel Halkin brilliantly evokes the fascinating world of eleventh- and twelfth-century Andalusian Spain in which Halevi lived and discusses the influences that formed him. Relying on the astonishing discoveries of the Cairo Geniza, he pieces together the mystery of Halevi’s last days, with its fateful voyage to Palestine, which became a haunting legend. An acclaimed writer and translator, Halkin builds his account of Halevi’s life and death on his magnificent translations of Halevi’s poems. He places The Kuzari within the wider context of Jewish thought and explains why, more perhaps than any other medieval Jewish figure, Halevi has become an inspirational yet highly controversial figure in modern Jewish and Israeli intellectual life.

Yehuda Halevi

This book contains twelve essays, ten of which appeared in Mosaic magazine in 2015-2018. They introduce English readers to a number of major Hebrew authors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose work forms an important part of the literary response to the modern Jewish experience. These essays also explore the reciprocal relationship in this period between Hebrew literature, the evolution of the modern Hebrew language, and the emergence of Zionism as a historic force in Jewish life.

The Lady of Hebrew and Her Lovers of Zion

After One-Hundred-and-Twenty provides a richly nuanced and deeply personal look at Jewish attitudes and practices regarding death, mourning, and the afterlife as they have existed and evolved from biblical times to today. Taking its title from the Hebrew and Yiddish blessing to live to a ripe old age—Moses is said to have been 120 years old when he died—the book explores how the Bible's original reticence about an afterlife gave way to views about personal judgment and reward after death, the resurrection of the body, and even reincarnation. It examines Talmudic perspectives on grief, burial, and the afterlife, shows how Jewish approaches to death changed in the Middle Ages with thinkers like Maimonides and in the mystical writings of the Zohar, and delves into such things as the origins of the custom of reciting Kaddish for the deceased and beliefs about encountering the dead in visions and dreams. After One-Hundred-and-Twenty is also Hillel Halkin's eloquent and disarmingly candid reflection on his own mortality, the deaths of those he has known and loved, and the comfort he has and has not derived from Jewish tradition.

Hans G. Kahn

Kahn escaped from the Nazis with no more than the shirt on his back. On his flight from Holland to Belgium, France and Spain, he traveled under the assumed identity of a Belgium naval cadet, hid in coal bins and stowed away on a freighter, hobnobbed with smugglers, whores, and priests, killed a German guard and holed up for two weeks in a French brothel while the Gestapo looked for him everywhere.

Against All Odds

Luck and Chutzpah

A finales de los años cincuenta, en Nueva York, dos chicos: Hoo y Ricky, y una chica, Mellie, se conocen mientras trabajan en la redacción de la revista literaria de su instituto. Allí forjarán una amistad que durará años y condicionará el resto de sus vidas. Muchos años después, Hoo, convertido en catedrático de filosofía, rememora su relación con Ricky y con Mellie, y también el trasfondo cultural y social de la época que les tocó vivir: los coletazos del macarthismo, la liberación de los años sesenta o las protestas contra la guerra de Vietnam. Conforme avanza la historia se van revelando las razones que le han llevado a escribir el relato de esa amistad; que es, en realidad, una maravillosa carta de amor a Mellie. En ¡Melisande! ¿Qué son los sueños? la sabia mirada de un hombre maduro sobre su vida y sobre aquello que le da sentido convierte este libro en un canto al amor y a la amistad, en una invitación al perdón. Una de las novelas de amor más extraordinarias de los últimos años que nos habla del poder de la literatura y la memoria. «Un relato vivencial para disfrutarlo a fondo, en particular implicando la sensibilidad y la inteligencia. Halkin reclama que compartamos la historia. Eso supone tratar de entender la formidable complejidad de su armazón, los oscuros resortes de los personajes, (...), alcanza tal clímax narrativo con una intensidad, una altura, una demudada belleza que provocan en uno la sensación de vivir -o haber vivido- en propia entraña, en un lugar y tiempo real, lo que Hillel Halkin cuenta con el sello de la ficción, como si fuese un algo soñado. Con el hechizo de un consumado urdidor de quimeras.»Robert Saladrigas Cultura/s, La Vanguardia «La nostalgia es un sentimiento que atrapa el corazón con una fuerza sutil y profunda. Lo muestra magistralmente Hillel Halkin.»Sagrario Fernández Prieto,La Razón «Una historia de amor dolorosa, como probablemente suelen ser las verdaderas historias de amor. Pero no exenta de primavera. Una joya.»J. Ernesto Ayala-Dip,El Correo

¡Melisande! ¿Qué son los sueños?

Shulamith Hareven

Three novellas by an Israeli woman writer. The Miracle Hater is on a man who loses his faith, Prophet is on a prophet who loses his powers, and After Childhood is on a marriage between a woman from the hills and a man from the plain.

The Desert Trilogy

Thirst

Traces the author's search in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, during which he came to believe that a little-known ethinc group living along the Indian-Burmese border is descended from the lost ancient biblical tribe of Manasseh. 20,000 first printing.

Hillel Halkin

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